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DATELINE NBC [UPDATED]
Air Date: Sunday, September 12, 2004
Time Slot: 7:00 PM-8:00 PM EST on NBC
Episode Title: "SHOW #4"
[NOTE: The following article is a press release issued by the aforementioned network and/or company. Any errors, typos, etc. are attributed to the original author. The release is reproduced solely for the dissemination of the enclosed information.]

NBC'S KATIE COURIC SITS DOWN WITH PULTIZER PRIZE-WINNING WRITER SEYMOUR HERSH ON 'DATELINE NBC,' SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12

Hersh Also to Appear on "Meet The Press" and "Today"

NEW YORK �- September 8, 2004 �- NBC's Katie Couric sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Seymour Hersh to discuss his new book, "Chain of Command," and the way the war on terror has changed America, this Sunday, Sept. 12 on "Dateline NBC" (7:00 PM, ET). Hersh will also appear on "Meet The Press," Sunday, Sept. 12 (check your local listings) and on "Today," Monday, Sept. 13 (7:00 AM, ET).

Excerpts from the interview:

Re: His feelings toward Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:

Hersh: Don Rumsfeld is-- you know, I...understand, peeved at me. But...he's got a presence. He's an engaging guy...I don't understand the Donald Rumsfeld I see now.

Re: The Abu Ghraib prison scandal:

Hersh: ...look a bunch of kids-- from West Virginia didn't figure out sexual humiliation is a way to do it. They just didn't figure it out. Somebody put their nose into it.

Couric: Well, what do you think's going to happen to those higher level individuals? Do you think they'll be taken to task? Or basically will the soldiers be the fall guys and girls?

Hersh: It's always the soldiers.

Re: Intelligence failures on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction:

Couric: In your book, you also talk about intelligence failures leading up to the war in Iraq, the fact that information about weapons of mass destruction. That proved to be either inaccurate or not yet proved accurate-- information about the way U.S. soldiers would be treated. You called this stove piping. What is stove piping exactly?

Hersh: They were hand carrying stuff from Rumsfeld's office in a briefcase into the Vice-President's office without the CIA getting a look see. And that is...the simple word is stupid...That's called stove piping, when you take stuff from the field directly in without putting it to the acid test of outside independents-- outside in the government that is...

Re: The investigations into the Abu Ghraib abuses:

Couric: Do you believe now that the U.S. military and the U.S. government is doing all it can do to get to the bottom of this?

Hersh: It's not capable. It's impossible to do it.

David Corvo is the executive producer of "Dateline NBC."

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